Celebrating Chinese National Day in Kunming

On October 1, China celebrates National Day (国庆节), officially commemorating the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Firework displays on an immense scale are staged in many major cities across the country and Beijing puts on an often interminably long parade replete with military hardware, goose-stepping soldiers and cultural points of pride. All of this pomp and circumstance is beamed to televisions in all corners of the country.

As with similar celebrations across the globe, National Day is a time of patriotic remembrance. The first such event famously included Mao Zedong, fresh from his defeat of the Nationalists, standing atop Tiananmen Gate before tens of thousands, publicly declaring the establishment of China as a Communist state.

Here in Kunming, while National Day is no less important to many, it is observed with a bit less vim and vigor than in the nation's capital. For some, it is a chance to leave the city on vacation, as the now seven-day holiday is one of few in the Chinese calendar without attendant familial obligations. Nonetheless, trips home for those originally from out of town are common as well. This year, an estimated 700 million people will travel, as National Day is combined with the far more venerable Mid-Autumn Festival.

For those who do stay in town, disruptions to daily life are slight, especially when compared to the frenzy of travel and business closings associated with Chinese New Year. For the most part, businesses, other than some banks, stay open through the October holiday. An officially organized fireworks display was once held at the north end of Dianchi Lake near Haigeng Park, but that seems to have been discontinued permanently.

Parades and other public observances in the Spring City were once common on National Day. In fact, such celebrations were intimately linked to Jinma Biji Fang (金马碧鸡坊) and its eponymous twin entrances — Golden Horse and Emerald Chicken gates — but those too have been done away with.

A 1991 celebration in Dongfeng Square

Before the founding of 'New China', what is today a pedestrian square was a busy thoroughfare through which much of the traffic heading east and west through the city had to pass. Since their original construction nearly four hundred years ago, Golden Horse and Emerald Chicken gates were a popular gathering place for vendors, travelers and, on important or official occasions, crowds of onlookers.

Parades, including those arranged for National Day celebrations, naturally passed through the gateway, which for nearly two centuries has been considered the city symbol. However, with the coming of the Cultural Revolution and its dictates of destroying the past, Jinbi Square was quite literally wiped off the map. Despite the cultural significance of the two gates, or in fact because of it, both were razed as China cleansed itself of 'backward' and 'feudal' symbols.

Kunming's Biji and Jinma gates, from a collection by Martin Hurlimann published in 1929

While national days continued to be held each October between 1966 and 1976, they too were purged of links to anything other than the Communist Party's vision of China. By this time, festivities had been relocated to Dongfeng Square (东风广场), a public area purpose-built for mass activities. Work groups — known as danwei (单位) — were required to design themed floats and choreograph their own performances each National Day. These usually centered around the 'three pillars' of Mao's China — workers, farmers and the military, collectively referred to as gongnongbing (工农兵).

Eventually, the Cultural Revolution came to an end and the country slowly returned to its senses. State-sponsored dogmatic repudiations of the past were eased and Jinbi Square was rebuilt at its original site in 1998. Dongfeng Square, however, continued to be the center of National Day functions until it too was summarily demolished in 2013.

Today, officials hold solemn private gatherings in the bowels of government buildings to remember the founding of the country. Gone are the parades and mass gatherings of years past. All of these activities have seemingly been replaced by a general hustle and bustle as Kunming residents and their counterparts across the country pursue a more modern pastime on their days off — shopping.

Editor's note: A version of this article was originally published by GoKunming on October 1, 2014.

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